the hill(Coming Home)
by nericearren
Summary: (Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday). Rukia loves him; so she can't feel guilty.


He's standing at the top of the hill, the rain beating down on his shoulders(they are broad but slumped, and it tears at her heart that he has to be strong alone)and soaking through his torn robes. She will make her way up to him(hiking barefoot, her calves burning, her heart aching for a time when this was easy and maybe even fun), in a moment, but for now she lets him have his time, the solitary warrior surveying his most recent battlefield. The fights keep getting harder, and the reasons to fight blurrier, but he slogs on, and so she must too. There's no way that she's going to give up before him.

(He's thinking of a grave).

She can tell, even from her place at the bottom of the hill, in the world of spattered blood that he is trying to distance himself from(the bodies pile around her, and her heart marvels at the loss). He's thinking of a grave, because that's the only thing that can bring a slouch to his posture; and even the rain draws down his face, and even the rain is thinking of a grave.

Rukia is very good at knowing what he's thinking, even when they are so apart, even when she looks up at him and sees only a battered remnant of the teenager he used to be(and she thinks that maybe he was always destined to be like this from the moment that she derailed his path like a freight train in a western). She is amazed that it is her who knows him as such, but she's long since accepted the fact that it will always be her at his side like no other, her hearing and seeing the things about him that no one else will(her right alone to climb that hill and stand by his side. No others would dare). He, in turn, has become her world; someone that she will open up to without shame, admit weakness to without the nagging feeling that she has failed.

(She's falling in love).

It's too hard not to. It's too hard to pretend that he's still a sweet boy to her, underneath the spirals of plots and hollowness of eyes and rain that pulls his face down, down, and tears out of his unblinking eyes. He is strong, the kind of strong that she could hide behind, though she fights that urge with a passion(she knows better than to trust fleeting human life). For Rukia, love is a serious matter, something to be gone about quietly without sparklers or fireworks or embarrassment. It's too precious to be treated as teenagers do, as something that can be made or broken by just a few moments of time. Love is more complete(love is where she always slips up, makes her worst mistakes, and ends up regretting her life. She used to love, and then she didn't, and now she's empty inside like a china doll). It grows without reason, and against better judgment, and it's forms are complex.

(He's pretending not to see her).

She mounts the hill with effort, her bones creaking(mortal bodies are too fragile), muscles complaining.

Ichigo stares out over the terrain, not acknowledging her presence. It's fine. There aren't any words to be had-just questions(How long will this go on? Is this how you want to spend your life? When will this end? Don't you think this is your limit?)that he won't answer, and that she already knows the answer to, besides.

Rukia lets her feet take her to him, where she stands by his side, close enough that she can guess at what he sees as he looks around. Gray and rain and blood and bodies. Senselessness. A sweet boy who was turned into something like a monster when he met her, so why is it that she can no longer bring herself to feel guilty? The only thing stronger than her fierce protectiveness of him is her equally fierce need to have him in her world. Why she can't rid herself of him is the one thing that she doesn't know.

(She's lucky there's a lot that _he_ doesn't know).

He finally faces her, brown eyes almost human, dark through the dreary atmosphere-"What?" he asks her, as if she's staring at him in class. As if he isn't bruised and bloodied and torn up and carrying rain in his face again. If only she could change things(take him away somewhere where the sun shines every day and girls wink over service counters and nothing bad ever happens, it would be wonderful), but she can't. Even if she could protect him from the world, he would still charge back in and choose this life-not because he wants to, but because someone has to and that someone will always be him.

(He wants to say something).

It's written in his face, his stiff arms, the hands that he almost uses to reach for her before checking himself. Rukia tilts up her face to look at him, blinking against the drops that splatter her eyes. It's her turn to ask, "What?". He shakes his head, water spraying from his orange hair. Their clothes cling to their bodies, and the rain to their clothes. Rukia wonders who clings on to the rain.

(She wants to say something).

There's frustration in him, the same concentrated look that he gets when he's figuring out a hard math problem or reading a recipe that he doesn't quite understand(his face is like a feeling, the feeling of not reaching something important, something well-needed and well-missed). His hands come up, then go down, an elevator of body parts that tells her nothing. They close around her upper arms with a strength she feels through her thick robes. Still frowning, he presses his mouth to hers as if that will give him the answer he seeks.

(Stop).

The rain is cold, trapped between their lips, the shivery icing on their cherry kiss, and his knuckles are white, so white, from gripping her shoulders and it should hurt but it doesn't, not even a little bit(because it's not enough). It only hurts when he uses the hold to thrust her away(still being the hero; even now, still being the hero)from him, before either of them can go further.

("Go.").

The word hangs between them until Rukia brings cold fingers to her damp, warm lips, and realizes that it came from her. Ichigo looks at her, still frustrated, still with that same feeling-look, rain still bringing his face down, down, down.

("Go.").

It's stronger now, stronger as she repeats it, and she grips the hilt of her zanpakto for emphasis. He casts his gaze downwards, towards the heap of bodies(maybe for the first time understanding, maybe for the first time regretting). He drops his rusted, stained sword(the hole in his chest is so big).

("Go.").

It's her right, alone, to stand by him on this hill. No others would dare.

If he knows what he's become, if there's even a little bit of him left that rejects the rainfall and the bloodbath and the endless war, she can't say. She only knows that he will mindlessly go on because it is not in his nature to give up fighting(that is her job, to make him give up. But she will put off killing him another day; her weak heart demands it).

Ichigo descends the hill, disappearing among the sea of bodies. Rukia watches him go.

And even now, she can't feel guilty.


End file.
